There are many known card games and poker card games, including the traditional Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw, Seven Card Draw, and many other variations of the traditional poker game, that provide amusement and potential employment, if a card game is played in a gaming establishment, e.g., a casino, to people all over the world. Thus, there is a need for an improved and different method of playing a card game, such as, but is not limited to, a variation of a traditional poker game.
The related art of interest describes various card games and poker games that use card decks consisting of fifty-two cards or sixty-five cards, or that are variations of the traditional poker game, but none discloses the present invention.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0036217 A1, published to Schlumbrecht, discloses a flop poker game being played with each player making an ante bet and a pot bet at the start of the game. Each player is dealt three cards face down and the dealer deals three cards to a designated area on the table face down. Each player plays their hand and determines to stay in the hand by making the flop bet to see the flop cards or by folding the hand and surrendering the ante bet to the house and the pot bet to the player's pot. The players that remain in the game see the flop. All cards are revealed at the same time all at once. They use three cards from their hand and any two cards from the flop. No additional wagering is necessary to use the sixth card to make their best five card poker hand. The game concludes with the dealer revealing all players hands to search for the highest value rank of the poker hands on the table. This game uses a standard fifty-two card deck.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0023706 A1, published to Hunter et al., discloses a new, extended card deck and method therefore comprising a standard fifty-two card deck plus at least one set of thirteen separately valued cards (Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, and King) having a new card suit capable of being used in various poker and other card games.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,132,311, issued to Williams, discloses that a player makes one wager to play two or more, and preferably five, hands of five cards each against a pay table and the player attempts to make the highest ranking five card poker hand in each hand. Using a standard deck of fifty-two playing cards, two cards are dealt face up and are the community cards that are common to each hand. The remaining three cards for each hand are dealt face down. The player may discard none, one or both of the face up community cards and receives replacement cards for the discarded cards, if any. The player may double his wager before or after the draw step. When the draw step is completed and the player has doubled his wager or not, the player presses the deal button and the remaining three face down cards are revealed. The community cards are used with each of the partial three card hands to form final five card hands. The player wins on any five card hand that has a preestablished poker hand ranking as shown in the pay table. In one variation, a sixty-five card deck is used which has five thirteen card suits.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0155713 A1, published to Jones et al., discloses a method of playing card games wherein a dealer deals seven cards to each player with all the card dealt face down. The players view their cards and each player has the option to either fold and lose an ante wager or call by making a bet wager exactly twice their ante wager.
Other U.S. patents or patent publications known to the inventor in the field of card games and poker games that use card decks consisting of fifty-two cards or sixty-five cards, or that are variations of the traditional poker game, are:
2002/0008356, 2003/0006555, 2003/0022709, 2003/0155713, 2003/0214097, 2004/0023706, 2004/0036217, 2004/0075214, 2004/0075216, 2004/0090005, 2004/0183256, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,067,724, 5,489,101, 5,725,216, 5,762,340, 5,785,593, 5,803,809, 5,810,354, 5,845,907, 6,132,311, 6,170,827, 6,379,245, 6,402,147, 6,752,394, and 6,755,421.
Foreign patents or patent publications known to the inventor in the field of card games and poker games are: WO 98/50120 A1, WO 99/64128 A1, EP 1145743 A2, and GB 2362836 A. Other references known to the inventor are: “Draw Poker Variants” (website: http://www.pokernews.info/poker-variants/drawpoker.html#5CardDraw), “The Five-Suited Deck of Playing Cards” (website: http://www.stardeck.com/), “Miscellaneous Poker Variants” (website: http://www.pokernews.info/poker-variants/miscellaneous.html), “Shared-Card Poker Variants” (website: http://www.pokernews.info/poker-variants/shared-card-poker.html), and “Stud Poker Variants” (website: http://www.pokernews.info/poker-variants/studpoker.html).
None of the above patents and publications, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.